Political Wisdom: Santorum Faces a Bumpy Road

Rick Santorum’s upset victories in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado give him momentum going into the next round of GOP presidential nomination contests, but the path to primaries later this month and Super Tuesday will be rocky as front-runner Mitt Romney takes aim at the former Pennsylvania senator.

Steve Kornacki at Salon.com warns, “No one threatens Mitt’s White House dreams and gets away with it.” Then again, unlike former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose campaign lost steam after a decisive win in South Carolina, Mr. Santorum, “is not an easy mark.”

Expect Romney to engage Santorum directly, as he did with Gingrich (the next debate is in two weeks), and expect his campaign and his super PAC allies to spend heavily, flooding the airwaves with the sorts of negative attacks that helped do Gingrich in. Romney’s surrogates will get in on the act too. When Michigan’s primary arrives in three weeks, it’s just about impossible to imagine Santorum enjoying a 70 percent favorable rating in the state. Romney and his campaign are used to this by now: Every challenger who has suddenly surged into contention has fallen back to earth quickly.

Santorum is not as easy a mark. He’s basically a competent candidate whose policy views are generally consistent and in line with those of the party base. The biggest knock on him, one that probably prevented him from breaking out earlier in the race, is that he came to the race on the heels of a landslide Senate reelection defeat in a key swing state. But now that he actually does have some traction, that might not matter for much…

So while Romney will undoubtedly make Santorum pay for his victories this week, it remains to be seen just how steep the price will be.

The man needs help from Wall Street or Big Gambling and he needs it quick. The former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania and perennial underdog managed to win not one but three states holding caucuses and a primary last night. But clear away the confetti and it’s an unhappy fact for the would-be threat to front-runner Mitt Romney that he is just about broke. …

The money picture for Santorum could change after this trifecta win in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri last night. It will have to. In the nearly three weeks leading to the next two big events in Michigan and Arizona on Feb. 28, the Romney campaign no doubt will hail negative advertising on Santorum as it did on Gingrich, and money will be no object.

But it will take a wholesale change in Santorum’s operation to turn things around. The earlier twist of luck that allowed Santorum to eke out an impressive if narrow victory over Romney in Iowa had only a modest positive impact on his fundraising.

1. Losing Big in 2006:Despite being elected twice as a congressman, then twice again as a senator from Pennsylvania, Santorum’s last race ended in a landslide defeat in his homestate that raises questions about his national electability. Indeed, he was trounced in 2006 by 18 points by Bob Casey Jr., at the time the largest margin of defeat for an incumbent since 1980.

2. Lobbying, D.C. Background: Santorum did work for Universal Health Services and other lobbying groups after he left the Senate, which he has defended as consistent with his “values.” But Mitt Romney has already started pounding him on this issue, saying Tuesday evening in Denver that “Washington will never be reformed by someone who has been compromised by the culture of Washington.”

3. Endorsed Romney in 2008:In the last presidential cycle, Santorum endorsed Romney, now his competitor, for president. “Governor Romney is the candidate who will stand up for the conservative principles that we hold dear,” Santorum said in a statement. …

At the Daily Beast, Ben Jacobs writes about the challenges Mr. Santorum faces in the next three contests: Maine, Michigan and Arizona.

Until Feb. 28, when both Michigan and Arizona have primaries, the only state holding a presidential-preference poll is Maine, which will announce the results of its caucuses on Saturday. Even though Santorum now has what Maine’s most famous Republican, George H.W. Bush, famously called “the Big Mo,” he will be unable to take full advantage of it. Not only will he have to contend with Ron Paul’s strong organization and Romney’s favorite-son status as a fellow New Englander in the Pine Tree State, but he also has to contend with the reality that many Mainers have already voted. Many towns and counties in Maine held their caucuses last weekend, including the state’s third-largest city, Bangor; its capital, Augusta; and Piscataquis County, which is the only county in New England that John McCain carried in 2008. Thus, the Santorum campaign doesn’t have high hopes in Maine.

In Michigan, where Romney is a native son and where his father was a very popular governor, Mitt is favored—as he is in Arizona, which has a large Mormon population. Nevertheless, Romney is vulnerable in Michigan. The Wolverine State is the kind of working-class, Rust Belt state that Santorum has performed very strongly in so far, and it will see a strong effort from his campaign. While Dan Schnur, the former communications director for McCain’s 2000 campaign, thinks Romney “ought to win Michigan and Arizona without much problem,” those states are not without their pitfalls. To Schnur, they have become the “new New Hampshire.” Romney will get “no credit for winning either, but he can’t afford to lose.” …

Santorum still is not the leader in delegates or the cumulative popular vote so far, but he now has real momentum and a clear, plausible path to victory. It remains to be seen whether he can successfully leverage these assets. But for a candidate who, only a few months ago, was going from Pizza Ranch to Pizza Ranch in the passenger seat of a pickup truck, it is a tremendous leap forward.

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